Women's Political Visibility and Media Access: the Case of Nigeria, Edited by Oladokun Omojola
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Women’s Political Visibility and Media Access: The Case of Nigeria Women’s Political Visibility and Media Access: The Case of Nigeria Edited by Oladokun Omojola Women's Political Visibility and Media Access: The Case of Nigeria, Edited by Oladokun Omojola This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Oladokun Omojola and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5659-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5659-1 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ............................................................................................. vii List of Figures............................................................................................. ix Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... xi Introduction .............................................................................................. xiii Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Media Content Consumption and Influence on Women’s Political Visibility Oladokun Omojola and Ngozi Morah Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 29 Television Influence and Political Participation of Nigeria’s Unseen Minorities Stella Aririguzoh Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 53 Exploring the Indifference of Women and Minorities in Nigeria’s Politics Victoria Ajala Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 73 Media Access as Barrier to Women’s Political Emergence in Nigeria Ibitayo Popoola Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 89 Muted Gender: How Nigerian Press portrays Female Politicians Ganiyat Tijani Adenle and Lai Oso Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 109 Women’s Political Invisibility in Nigeria and the Imperative of Deliberate Media Agenda Kehinde Oyesomi and Olusola Oyero vi Table of Contents Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 127 African Women and Socio-Political Imperatives of ICTs Wilson Joseph, Nuhu Gapsiso and Musa Usman Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 143 Communication Strategies for Nigerian Women’s Participation in Politics Chijioke Odii and Luke Anorue Contributors ............................................................................................. 159 LIST OF TABLES Table 1-1: Stories according to the 12 policy areas Table 1-2: Total number of stories according to policy areas Table 1-3: Total number of stories published between 1999 and 2003 Table 1-4: Percentage of political stories for each medium relative to other areas Table 1-5: Percentage of Politics stories published on women Table 1- 6: Lagos State citizens’ rating of their access to the political contents of the four publishers Table 1-7: Lagos State citizens’ rating of the reading of press contents medium-by- medium Table 1-8: The descriptive statistics of Lagos State citizens’ reading of press contents medium-by-medium Table 1-9: The descriptive statistics of the six groups’ access to the contents of the press Table 1-10: The descriptive statistics of the six groups’ actual reading of the contents of the press Table 1-11a: Percentage differential in men and women’s consumption of Eko Today contents Table 1-11b: Percentage differential in men and women’s consumption of Vanguard contents Table 1-11c: Percentage differential in men and women’s consumption of Punch contents Table 1-11d: Percentage differential in men and women’s consumption of Tell contents Table 1-12: Cumulative gender differential in actual consumption of press contents Table 2-1: Description of voters’ location Table 2-2: Description of voters’ literacy level Table 2-3: Description of voters’ skill level Table 2-4: Description of voters’ party membership Table 2-5: Responses on the influence of television broadcasts on respondents’ participation in the presidential election Table 2-6: Literacy level of respondents Table 2-7: Descriptive statistics of no/low skilled respondents Table 2-8: Descriptive statistics of non-party member respondents Table 2-9: Descriptive statistics of the responses of respondents based on location Table 2-10: Correlation coefficients between exposures to television broadcast and rural respondents Table 2-11: Correlation variables based on literacy level viii List of Tables Table 2-12: Correlation coefficients between exposures to television broadcast and respondents’ job skill level Table 2-13: Correlation coefficients between exposure to television broadcast and respondents’ non-party membership Table 3-1: Data of Male/Female Bowen University’s registered students in 2010/2011 Table 3-2: Respondents’ intention to contest in the 2015 elections and beyond Table 3-3: Respondents who would not contest in the 2015 elections and beyond Table 3-4: Opinions of respondents who would and would not contest in the 2015 elections and beyond Table 4-1: Major appointments made by the Executive at the federal level between May, 1999 and May, 2003 Table 5-1: Number of items published about female politicians Table 5-2: Direction of story and space used Table 5-3: Position of story and form of identification Table 5-4: Form of publication Table 5-5: Source of publication Table 5-6: Tone of story Table 5-7: Subject matter Table 5-8: Dateline of story Table 6-1: Frequency distribution of the newspaper coverage of the 2011 general elections Table 6-2: Coverage of men/women in 2011 general elections Table 6-3: Distribution of women in the coverage of the 2011 general election according to genres Table 6-4: Distribution of women’s participation in the 2011 general elections according to slant given Table 6-5: Distribution of women’s participation in the 2011 general elections according to prominence Table 6-6: Distribution of women’s participation in the 2011 general elections according to the quality of report Table 8-1: Applied communication for development model Table 8-2: Problem behavior, behavior to promote and communication objectives Table 8-3: Monitoring and evaluation indicators for Objective 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3-1: Media Role in the Adoption Process Figure 8- 2: The ACADA Communication Model ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks go to the following contributors for making this book a success: Professor Lai Oso, who is the Dean of the Adebola Adegunwa School of Communication at Lagos State University; Associate Professor Victoria Ajala of Bowen University; Dr. Stella Aririguzoh, Dr. Olusola Oyero and Dr. kehinde Oyesomi of Covenant University; Mr Ibitayo Popoola of the University of Lagos; Messrs Joseph Wilson, Nuhu Gapsiso and Musa Usman of the University of Maiduguri; Ganiyat Tijani Adenle also of the Lagos State University; Chijioke Odii of Samuel Adegboyega University and Luke Ifeanyi Anorue of the University of Nigeria. Appreciation is extended to the Managing Director of Newswatch Communications, Lagos, Nigeria, Dr. Bolu John Folayan and Professor Abiodun Salawu of the University of Fort Hare, South Africa, for their support. I express sincere gratitude for the contributions of Ms. Carol Koulikourdi of the Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, who provided the environment conducive for us to work with her colleagues. I also thank my older brother, Olabode Omojola, of Five Colleges (Western Massachusetts) in the United States for his advice. His professorial advice is deeply appreciated. On a personal note, I thank my wife, Omotola, and my children, Olagoriola, Ayoola and Adeola, who always give the space when I need time alone to work. Their company anytime I desire to relax and play is awesome. INTRODUCTION The audience, media channel, message and message speed are all important aspects of a mass communication system. But more important is the appeal of the message. Is the message useful to the audience but a loss to media owners or workers? Is it significant to media owners but not of any profit to the audience? Is the message in the public interest? Does it promote development? Questions about the communication situation of a message have remained due to their social significance. Media scholars, professional communicators and sociologists have endeavoured to proffer answers, judging from the numerous studies that have been carried out. Women’s involvement in politics at all levels and its coverage in the media is an area that makes the situation of communication messages a big issue. It appears that news about women is hardly news for many media houses in terms of coverage the women get and with regard to the amount of news content they access and consume. The preponderance of men in the news, and in many cases to the detriment of women, requires a re- examination. Nigeria has been selected as a case study for this re- examination, having